It must have been a tough decision for the royal couple: commission some new music for the wedding, or snub the present complement of British composers in favour of the proven performers of yesteryear? Either choice ran the risk of embarrassing the current crop in a service that included Parry’s I Was Glad, the incomparable hymn Jerusalem, and whose full musical programme showcased the who’s who of early 20th-century composers from the Isles. With admirable courage, the pair went for the first option, and so two new works sounded forth in the Abbey on Friday: the anthem This is the day which the Lord hath made, by John Rutter, and Paul Mealor’s motet on the Ubi caritas text.

We begin with the Rutter:

Many will disagree, but to me Rutter really is the most insubstantial of British composers. Like Ross Edwards and Morten Lauridsen, he writes the same tired piece over and over again. This is the day features all his usual tricks, which are pretty easily listed: 1) naïve and clammily diatonic melodies and chord progressions; 2) the use of broken chords in the organ to disguise a strikingly minimal command of choral textures other than simple homophony; 3) the constant juxtaposition of the higher and lower voices in the choir; 4) a more thickly-textured a cappella section towards the end, before a final reprise; and 5) heavy dependence for aural effect on the easy, white-bread pleasantness of well-sung music from the chapel.

Polemicising against Pärt, Górecki and Tavener, Josiah Fisk once saw fit to write: “Instead of taking the elements that the classical tradition has considered to be raw materials and working with them, they pass the materials along to us with only minimal craftsmanship – commodities still partly in their original wrappers.” Had Rutter been his target instead, I would have had some sympathy for Fisk’s complaint. This is the day and pieces like it cheapen a wonderful tradition. No wonder poor old George Osborne was looking a bit shifty at around the three-minute mark.

Next, the Mealor:

Having heard this, I’d confidently say that what Mealor lacks relative to Rutter in reputation he surely makes up in talent. It’s a subtle and impressively restrained motet, well-judged for the occasion in its solemnity and contemplative character. Although Mealor also trades in homophony, he does so much more with it: the subtle changes in registration and dynamics build a far more convincing arc than Rutter’s go-nowhere tunes and remorseless mezzo-piano. The harmonic palette is educated and appropriately contemporary, and the interest provided by it is nicely enhanced by the tight sostenuto control in the Westminster Choir’s performance. By writing for unaccompanied voices, and thus calling in the rhetoric of silence rather than reverting to organ fiddling, Mealor imparts some reverence to his setting of a venerable text. A delightful answer to what must have been a daunting commission: Ubi caritas was surely the musical success story of the day.